Today we enter the Solstice, which, this year, flows into a New Moon with an annular solar eclipse. It’s a complex and intense lunation. It will stir up (is already stirring up) strong emotions. We’re in transition, needing to reckon with the past so we can step into a future we can celebrate.
First let me say something about the Solstice chart, in which the Sun has inched past the North Node to reach 0 Cancer. The Moon, at 25 Gemini, approaches the North Node for her conjunction.
Mercury sits in their station degree, 14 Cancer, barely moving as their retrograde journey begins. Venus nears the end of her retrograde journey. She might feel caught in a deep place, perhaps lost there, but soon she will return, bearing gifts from the shadows.
Pluto, Jupiter, Saturn, and the asteroid Pallas Athena are all retrograde as well, as Saturn prepares to reenter Capricorn, where the others wait.
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The Moon squares Neptune at 20 and Mars at 25 Pisces, while Mars sextiles the Capricorn group. Our emotions, held within our bodies, are tied into our deepest, widest visions as well as our current reality. We cannot deny the weight of the past.
Much of this pattern carries forward into the New Moon eclipse chart. Yet the Moon, messenger and guardian, holds a significant position at the Solstice. Sun and Moon flank the North Node. The luminaries enclose the point where new things are entering the world.
Will these new things be good or bad? Undoubtedly, both. This is the place where karma unfolds and karma is always mixed. We know this in part because of where we are. At the Solstice, day and night are equal. Here in the northern hemisphere, on the cusp of summer, we will now begin losing light. It’s how things cycle.
This point of enclosure at the Solstice orients us. We at the edge of Gemini and Cancer, mutable Air and cardinal Water. The energy leans more into Water, though, because Mercury, who rules Gemini, is standing still in the middle of Cancer, home of the Moon.
At the Solstice, Moon and Mercury are in mutual reception. We’re invited to prioritize ideas with heart. Our curiosity is piqued by innovative ways we can care for each other, protect each other. We’re also curious about how our attention can get hijacked by emotion, how what we think is more easily influenced by how we feel, than we realize.
The New Moon arrives nine hours after the moment of Solstice. Everything in the New Moon chart is pretty much the same except that the Moon has crossed over the North Node, entered Cancer, and joined the Sun.
Plus the eclipse, so, let’s explore that. Eclipses at a New Moon are always solar. The Moon lines up between the Sun and Earth to block the light. When it’s close to exact, we get an annular eclipse, the ring of fire. This one is a ring of fire eclipse.
We won’t see this eclipse in North America but only because the Sun won’t be above the horizon. It doesn’t mean it’s not happening or won’t be important for us. This is important for everyone.
The eclipse will be most visible cross central Africa, the Indian subcontinent, and Southeast Asia. All eclipses are part of wider cycles, which I unpacked a bit in my essay and podcast for the Full Moon in Sagittarius.
To get a sense of which cycles this Full Moon might evoke personally, we look back to late spring of 2002, when we had a similar set of three eclipses, each one in the same Saros cycles as the three we have this year.
From a global perspective, astrologer Bernadette Brady identifies this solar eclipse as part of a difficult Saros family. The idea that we’re approaching an especially challenging eclipse portal will surprise no one.
Because this is a New Moon at the very opening of Cancer, along with Mercury retrograde in Cancer, Mars in Pisces close to Neptune, and Venus still retrograde, this New Moon will be one of strong emotion.
Cancer is the cardinal Water sign, the sign associated with the archetype of the mother, with nurturance, with home and family. The Water signs are classically designated as feminine. A less gendered way to think of the Water signs is to describe them as yin, receptive and flowing.
Yet Cancer is the cardinal sign. This is a place of active nurturing. Here we initiate care. We take action to protect those we care about. This is parenting. Mothering, no matter who does it.
Our desire to actively protect and nurture those we care about is strongly triggered these days. We’re dealing with a virus which is invisible and whose characteristics remain poorly understood. At the same time, many of us live in societies which are not pursuing consistent, science-based strategies for control and management. (Yes, US, I’m looking at you in particular).
Also in the US, we’ve been brought face to face with the impact of hundreds of years of abuse, violence, and systemic discrimination and racism targeting all nonwhite communities and especially Black and Indigenous people.
These are situations that call out for healing and nurturance as well as dismantling the structures in society that continue to enable and support discrimination.
When Cancer energy is high, we want to identify our circles of care. We need to recognize that Cancer is a conservative sign. Conservation is not always bad. I’m in favor of environmental conservation, as well as the conservation of artworks and books and artifacts and historical documents.
Sometimes, though, the Cancerian response to threat is to circle the wagons and define everyone not like us as the enemy. Suddenly we are asked to explain who is like us, and why we think that, and what what means. Which in itself, for some people already privileged, feels threatening.
At this New Moon eclipse, we are likely to see and, more importantly, feel all the places where we want to retreat, withdraw, stay safe, stick with the familiar, not challenge ourselves or our worldview. This is likely to be uncomfortable.
My recommendation, to gain the most insight and growth from this New Moon, is to stay with the discomfort as we widen our circles of care as much as we can stand.
Honestly, my circle of care at this point includes all of life. The pandemic itself arose from human encroachment on wild places. This is an ongoing risk to our health and well being as a species. We remain at a tipping point for climate change and degradation.
There are more and less skillful ways to widen our circles of care. Another task offered us at the New Moon eclipse is to learn the skillful ones and let go of the damaging ones.
I’ll offer an example which is a way of activating and managing circles of care when trauma has occurred or is occurring. I’m including a diagram of this in the blogpost.
Basically, the one experiencing trauma is in the center of the circle. Outer rings include first family and close friends and caregivers, and then friends and acquaintances, neighbors, and so on, as needed.
The key components of the diagram are two arrows, one pointing in to the center, the other coming out. Support goes in. Venting comes out. That’s it. This can be tougher to do that you might think.
For example, if your friend has cancer, you cannot expect her to support you as you process your stress and grief. Nor should you expect such support from her partner or children or caregivers. Your role as friend is to listen to those closer to the center share their feelings and support them. You need to look outward for your own support.
Likewise, White people ought not to expect Black friends or social media people to offer support to us as we all respond to the unfolding traumas related to the killing of Black people. We can feel all the feels. I am not suggesting for a moment we need to stuff emotions down, ignore them, or anything like that. We just shouldn’t be carrying them into the center expecting support.
I’d also like to say something about empaths and being empathic generally. This New Moon is highly empathic. If you tend to easily pick up on the emotions of others, this will be happening around the New Moon.
Indeed, I think this will continue throughout this particular Mercury retrograde. I believe one of the key themes of the retrograde will be how we perceive, experience, understand, and share emotions.
I’ve already heard from friends and clients and members of my various circles what being empathic feels really difficult right now. This is a true and accurate perception. I want to support that and say we all need to follow good self care in such times as these.
It can be helpful to understand that empathy has two components. One is emotional resonance, the capacity to perceive and resonate with another’s emotional state. The second is how we respond, which is different from the emotional resonance itself.
Some empaths, especially children, get hijacked by the emotions of the people around them. This is especially true for people we’re close to and for strong emotions.
Some feel a need to take care of people. In part this is a genuine desire to help and in part it’s a survival mechanism: If people in my living space are angry, I can’t rest until the anger is dealt with.
Some withdraw or shut down. This too can be a survival mechanism.
If you are empathic to any degree, it is vital to develop boundaries. The more empathic you are, the more important this is. The problem is, those who respond with compassion and care sometimes feel it’s wrong to have boundaries. Perceiving someone else’s anger or sadness becomes a call to action.
This is problematic.
Coping with your own empathy by attempting to help or fix is dangerous. It’s bad for your health and also your sovereignty. It violates the other person’s boundaries since they may not have asked for your help, or may not define their situation the same way you do. It’s also ineffective because we can’t actually fix other people. There are certainly ways we can help. We can’t fix them.
So in time of what can feel like constant triggering, what do we do?
This is another key theme for this New Moon eclipse. We have the chance to explore what we’re doing now, whether that’s working, and what might work better.
I’m going to close with a few thoughts while saying up front we all get to choose. We each chart our own course. I do not know your situation, your history, or what you need. If anything I’ve said here is helpful, that’s wonderful. If not, there are other ideas and approaches out there that could be helpful for you.
So, withdrawing from the world is vital and sometimes essential. The more emotionally resonant you are, the more this is true.
If we are withdrawing to await a quieter time, staying hunkered down, hoping to avoid being noticed, we’re missing opportunities.
When we’re triggered by the world and people in it, we are shown places where we need to heal. Withdrawing to allow time for active healing and rest and repair is excellent. Worthy. Important.
Heal. Don’t just hide. The world needs all of us.
One important aspect to healing is being able to stay in our bodies. This is where we live. It’s also where our emotions reside and where we carry trauma. Sometimes being emotionally triggered can push us right out of our bodies.
We dissociate to avoid pain. This is a useful short term strategy and not so good as an ongoing coping mechanism. If we can’t stay in our bodies, we lose touch with who we are. We lose our connection with the earth and our own sources of power.
There are many body-based healing modalities out there. Two of my personal favorites in this area are the work of Peter Levine (https://traumahealing.org/) and the work of Judith Blackstone (https://realizationprocess.org/). These two have been really important to me personally and still are.
There’s a lot going on. Much uncertainty. Much to be concerned about. I am noticing that in my examples I’ve mentioned anger and sadness but not fear. Fear is also definitely a thing.
There is also hope. Growth. New connections being made. New circles of care created. This time of crisis is way more interesting than many of us might prefer. It’s also opening up opportunities to correct longstanding, deep injustice.
We can’t look away. We need to show up for this. Which means we need to figure out how to learn where we are right now, what support and healing we need, how to source that, and what in turn we can offer this emerging world.
The astrological charts are my own. So is the circles of care diagram. The images in this post include the title,
adapted from the annular eclipse by Marek Okon,
and the following images:
the circle of sparks by Gage Walker,
rainbow heart by Sharon McCutcheon, and
the justice question by Jon Tyson.